[Advaita-l] Commentary on Ramana's Forty Verses

[Ven Balakrishnan]

To clarify further the issue of mental vs physical action in BG, Sankara actually plays out exactly this objection in his bhasya 2.21:


“The Lord will also speak of renunication of all actions in, ‘having given up all actions mentally,’ etc.

Objection: May it not be argued that from the expression, ‘mentally’, (it follows that) oral and bodily actions are not to be renounced?

Vedantin: No, because of the categoric expression, ‘all actions’.

Objection: May it not be argued that ‘all actions’ relates only to those of the mind?

Vedantin: No, because all oral and bodily actions are preceded by those of the mind, for those actions are impossible in the absence of mental activity."



> On 17 Jun 2021, at 15:15, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 5:15 AM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>> RAMANAMAHARISHI
>> 
>> Ramanamaharishi never said anyone must do anything.  It is evident that
>> the more intense a person’s vairagya, disidentification with body-mind, the
>> more naturally the actions and possessions will fall away.
>> 
> 
> Untrue. To take just one example from Talks:
> 
> An examination of the ephemeral nature of external phenomena leads to
> vairagya. Hence enquiry (vichara) is the first and foremost step *to be
> taken*...If, however, the aspirant is not temperamentally suited to Vichara
> Marga (to the introspective analytical method), he *must* develop
> bhakti... If an aspirant be unsuited temperamentally for the first two
> methods and circumstantially (on account of age) for the third method, he
> *must* try the Karma Marga"
> 
> This is not a volitional giving up, but an inevitable giving up as a result
>> of seeing the world as unreal, illusory.  To tell all and sundry that
>> visited him, and who were not advanced on their path, to become monks would
>> have been preposterous - so he gave them advice at their own level.
>> 
> 
> He could have said, just as he did above, that monkhood was eventually
> required, but that it had to be done only when one was ripe.
> 
> But he *never* said that. In fact, he said all the time the opposite.
> 
> e.g.:
> 
> D: Is solitude necessary for a sannyasin?
> M: Solitude is in the mind of a man. One might be in the thick of the world
> and yet maintain perfect serenity of mind; such a person is always in
> solitude. Another may stay in the forest but still be unable to control his
> mind. He cannot be said to be in solitude. Solitude is an attitude of the
> mind; a man attached to the things of life cannot get solitude, wherever he
> may be. A detached man is always in solitude.
> 
> 
>> 
>> In response to your question, here is Ramana in GVK:
>> 
>> 829. Since it is impossible to know beforehand the last moment of one’s
>> life, it is best for one who has a firm determination [to put an end to
>> birth and death] to renounce at the very moment he gets disgust for
>> the body and world.
>> 
>> 830. Just as a fruit falls from the tree when ripe, so an aspirant will
>> certainly renounce his family life like saltless gruel as soon as he
>> becomes fully mature, *unless his prarabdha interferes as an obstacle*.
>> 
> 
> I've bolded the relevant portion. None of the rest is relevant. It may be
> "best" for someone who has disgust for the body and world to physically
> renounce, but it is not a necessity for realization.
> 
> 
>> BHAGAVAD GITA
>> 
>> In BG, Krishna is teaching Arjuna the path of karma yoga, because he
>> recognises that Arjuna is not yet mature enough for renunciation - which is
>> what Arjuna wanted to do, but this was a volitional renunciation based on
>> his egoistic will of not wishing to fight his family; not a ’natural’
>> renunciation that comes from understanding.
>> 
>> Hence Krishna teaches Arjuna desireless action - naiskama karma.
>> Krishna’s 'seeing action in inaction' is this very point - simple physical
>> renunciation, but with all the desires and thoughts running in one’s mind
>> is not true renunciation.
>> 
> 
> No, Krishna's point is that physical inaction is not inaction, period, end
> of story. The mind is where the point is, and if the fruit of the action is
> given up, it does not matter what one does.
> 
> "He who has abandoned all atttachment to the fruits of action, always
> content, not dependent, when when performing action, does, in effect,
> nothing at all." (BG 4:20)
> 
> And at the end of the BG, despite not physically renouncing, Arjuna ends up
> a jnani.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> In BG 14.21 Arjuna asks Krishna what is the behaviour of one who has
>> transcended the three gunas.  In Sankara’s bhasya to Krishna’s reply in
>> 14.25 he writes:
>> 
>> "'’who has renounced all enterprise’ i.e. WHO IS APT TO GIVE UP ALL
>> UNDERTAKINGS, WHO HAS GIVEN UP ALL ACTIONS OTHER THAN THOSE NEEDED MERELY
>> FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE BODY; he is said to have gone beyond the
>> qualities. The disciplines leading to the state of transcendence of the
>> qualities [gunas], which have been stated (in the verses) beginning from
>> ‘he who, sitting like one indifferent,’ and ending with ‘he is said to have
>> gone beyond the qualities’ have to be practised by a monk, a seeker of
>> Liberation, so long as they are to be achieved through effort”
>> 
> 
> Yes, Sankara has this position vis-à-vis his Brahmin disciples. Yet Sankara
> also acknowledges that Janaka is a jnani. Janaka, who *clearly* has not
> physically renounced. Obviously, Sankara's advice is limited to a certain
> class of people.
> 
> 
> 
>> SANKARA ON RENUNCIATION AND INCOMPATIBILITY OF HOUSEHOLDER LIFE
>> 
>> Sankara throughout his bhasyas explains that renunciation is an inevitable
>> corollary of knowledge that one is not the body-mind, and of unity of all.
>> He often asks if one knows one’s unity with all, what desires can there be,
>> and in the absence of desires what action can there be.  *The only
>> exception* to action that he makes is for ’the good of the world’ - like
>> a Janaka - such action is obviously free from personal desire.
>> 
> 
> Yes, well through this exception whole universes can fit. What the jnani
> does without desire *is* for the good of the world.
> 
> If Janaka is a jnani, all the other stuff you say about Sankara's
> injunctions to leave household work cannot, by definition, be universal.
> Janaka did not leave work to obtain jnana, nor did he leave work after he
> attained it.
> 
> Indeed, Krishna says one *should* act, and in fact everyone *does* act,
> including the wise.
> 
> "Perfection was attained by kings like Janaka with action alone.
> For the mere maintenance of the world, You should act." (BG 3:20)
> 
> "One acts according to one's own material nature. Even the wise man does
> so. Beings follow their own material nature; What will restraint
> accomplish?" (3:33)
> 
> 
>> 
>> Advaita is a path of truth, of utter desirelessness and austerity.  There
>> is a movement to make it more palatable to a larger (Western) 'market', by
>> diluting Sankara’s oft-repeated words, saying they are an outcome of their
>> times, and focusing on the knowledge aspect rather that the concomitant
>> desirelessness aspect.  That is simply picking and choosing bits of sruti
>> that appear more congenial.  Moreover Ramanamaharishi’s life in the 20th
>> century exemplified Sankara’s description of a jnani / jivanmukta - so
>> invalidating the argument that Sankara was just talking in the cultural
>> milieu of life a 1000 plus years ago.
>> 
> 
> Real understanding shows that such rigid views about what constitutes
> renunciation run against the spirit of nonduality, in which obviously every
> single creature up to Ishwara himself is constantly acting. Some particular
> physical act of renunciation being necessary for Self-knowledge, which is
> natural and ours by right, is a profound misunderstanding.
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 17 Jun 2021, at 03:04, Akilesh Ayyar <ayyar at akilesh.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Show me where in his written works it is said that one MUST take to
>> monkhood and give up the householder life. Not once does he say that.
>> 
>> His talks, as you well know, all contradict that idea, and so do the
>> spirit of his words.
>> 
>> The burden is on you to show why he didn’t say it was a must if it is so
>> important. Why didn’t he say, as Sankara clearly does in his texts to his
>> Brahmin disciples, “you MUST give up the householder life”?
>> 
>> If we are taking Ramana’s words “LITERALLY,” and jnanis are “literally”
>> dead to the world, then, again, why do jnanis eat?
>> 
>> Again, verbal gymnastics will not save you from an inadequate
>> understanding. Literalness yields nonsense in nonduality.
>> 
>> In the BG Krishna clearly says over and over again that non-action is not
>> the same as the way of monkhood. Arjuna and Janaka are just two examples of
>> non-monk jnanis.
>> 
>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 6:25 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> It is a source of amusement to see so-many self-proclaimed jnanis
>>> passionately emphasise that renunciation, utter desirelessness is not a
>>> concomitant of jnana.  I wonder why that could be?
>>> 
>>> And the verbal acrobatics to justify this position, arguing a phrase here
>>> is figurative, whereas a phrase there should be taken literally.
>>> 
>>> Bhagavan in the recorded Talks was talking at the level of the seekers
>>> that asked him questions.  After all, in the BG, Krishna said only very few
>>> would ever achieve jnana.  And there can be some question over whether the
>>> recorder of the talks was accurate in his note-taking and interpretation.
>>> So his written works like Ulladu Narpadu and GVK have to be the best
>>> authority for his teaching.
>>> 
>>> I suggest you find something in his written work (incl GVK) that would
>>> support the contention that utter desirelessness / disassociation with
>>> body-mind is not what is meant by jnana.  If he said it "many times”, then
>>> surely he or Muruganar must have written it down as well.  Whereas I can
>>> find you quite a few written quotes, like your own in this second verse,
>>> that makes exactly that point; let alone the guidance he gave to some of
>>> his closest disciples who lived lives of renunciation and austerity around
>>> him - Muruganar, Annamalai Swami, Chadwick, Sadhu Natananda, Sadhu Om, to
>>> name but a few.  Find a realised disciple in Ramana’s constellation who
>>> lived the life of a householder.
>>> 
>>> The argument that Gaudapada / Sankara / the Upanishads were aimed at
>>> monks is a novel one, as opposed to elucidating what they believed was the
>>> highest truth to all.  Again, it is case of taking some teaching as gospel,
>>> and others as figurative or a product of their cultural times.  Convenient,
>>> no?
>>> 
>>> Ramana’s actionlessness and renunciation from the outset - without having
>>> read any sruti - exemplifies exactly what  Sankara described as the life of
>>> a jivanmukta.  As Sw Chinmayananda said of him, ‘he is the cream of the
>>> upanishads’.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 16 Jun 2021, at 21:11, Akilesh Ayyar <ayyar at akilesh.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:09 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Four responses:
>>>> 
>>>> 1) I’m just replaying your quote.  Do you believe Ramana was
>>>> exaggerating for effect?  What was his intention in writing such a strongly
>>>> worded phrase - surely not to mislead?
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Not at all to mislead. It has to be understood, as I put it in my
>>> commentary: "By dying to what is changing — to what one thought one was,
>>> but in fact is not — one  realizes oneself to actually be the unchanging."
>>> 
>>> The unchanging has no truck with either doing or not-doing. Those
>>> categories do not apply.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 2) Recall that Bhagavan when he arrived at Tiruvannamallai, sat
>>>> indifferent to his body and the insects biting him, let alone requirements
>>>> for food, for days on end.  He had to be force fed.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, yes, and Bhagavan has said many times that his path is not for
>>> everyone and not required for jnana.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 3) Lakshmana Sarma - who received personal instruction on Ulladu Narpadu
>>>> from Bhagavan - wrote this in HIS commentary on this verse:
>>>> 
>>>> “The knowledge born out of personal experience that worldly life is
>>>> riddled with sorrow turns one through dispassion towards nivritti marga,
>>>> the path of withdrawal from activity or of renunciation.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Nivritti marga agani has to be understood. True renunciation is the
>>> renunciation of the ego, not of gross physical activity, as both Ramana and
>>> the Bhagavad Gita have said repeatedly.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 4) Then there is Gaudapada, MK 2.37:
>>>> 
>>>> “He should have this body and the Atman as his support and depend upon
>>>> chances, ie he should be satisfied with those things for his physical
>>>> wants, that chance brings him”
>>>> 
>>>> Sankara underscores this in his bhasya to this verse
>>>> “He entirely depends on circumstances, that is to say, he maintains his
>>>> body with whatever food or strips of cloth, etc are brought to him by mere
>>>> chance”
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, we understand that these are the monastic traditions they worked in.
>>> But that's because these Upanishads were geared towards monks. This is not
>>> the requirement for jnana for everyone.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Hope that clarifies what ‘dead to themselves and their possessions’
>>>> means.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On 16 Jun 2021, at 16:44, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
>>>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> If so, why would they eat?
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 4:07 AM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> “DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR POSSESSIONS”
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ramanamaharishi is entirely consistent with Sankara saying a jnani
>>>> will
>>>>>> inevitably take up the life of a paramahamsa ascetic, since s/he has
>>>> no
>>>>>> desires, no fear, no attachments, not even to body-mind - like a
>>>> snake that
>>>>>> has shed its skin.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 15 Jun 2021, at 17:26, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
>>>>>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Namaste,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> This is the commentary on the next verse.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> From
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>> https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/2021/6/15/commentary-on-ramanas-forty-verses-invocatory-part-two-of-two
>>>>>>> :
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> II. THOSE WHO KNOW INTENSE FEAR OF DEATH SEEK REFUGE ONLY AT THE
>>>> FEET OF
>>>>>>> THE LORD WHO HAS NEITHER DEATH NOR BIRTH. DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND
>>>> THEIR
>>>>>>> POSSESSIONS, CAN THE THOUGHT OF DEATH OCCUR TO THEM AGAIN? DEATHLESS
>>>> ARE
>>>>>>> THEY.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> *Commentary:* All fear is rooted in the fear of death. But death can
>>>> only
>>>>>>> afflict what is born, that is, what is changing: that is, what is
>>>>>> thought.
>>>>>>> We have just seen that what is Real is unchanging, and that what is
>>>> Real
>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> us.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The Lord who has neither birth nor death is none other than this very
>>>>>>> Reality, the Heart. This Lord may go by many other names — Shiva or
>>>>>> Vishnu
>>>>>>> or God or the Goddess, for example. But ultimately they all refer to
>>>> this
>>>>>>> unchanging Reality.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In order to take refuge at the feet of this Lord, all else must be
>>>> given
>>>>>>> up. This giving up is a kind of death. By dying to what is changing
>>>> — to
>>>>>>> what one thought one was, but in fact is not — one realizes oneself
>>>> to
>>>>>>> actually be the unchanging. What seems mortal has in fact never been
>>>> born
>>>>>>> to begin with, and what is immortal cannot die. And the thought of
>>>> death
>>>>>>> cannot occur to the immortals, which are those who have given up
>>>> their
>>>>>>> stake in everything changing.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so
>>>> far
>>>>>>> here
>>>>>>> <
>>>> https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/tag/Forty%20Verses%20Commentary
>>>>>>> .
>>>>>>> Akilesh Ayyar
>>>>>>> Spiritual guidance - http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/
>>>>>>> ᐧ
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>>>>>> ᐧ
>>>>> ᐧ
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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